Natasha Cornett

Natasha Leanne Wallen Cornett (born January 26, 1979) is an American criminal currently serving a sentence of life without parole at the Bledsoe County Correctional Complex in Pikeville, Tennessee, for her involvement in the Lillelid murders.

In her book The Scarred Heart: Understanding and Identifying Kids Who Kill, forensic psychologist Helen Smith considers Natasha Cornett's troubled life as a warning of the failures of the school, mental health, and criminal justice systems in preventive treatment.

Early life Cornett was born into poverty in rural Pike County, located in Eastern Kentucky. Cornett's mother, Madonna Wallen, was not married to her biological father, a local policeman named Roger Burgess with whom Madonna was having an affair. When Natasha was a toddler, Madonna left her husband, Ed Wallen, and raised Natasha alone as a single mother in a ram-shackle trailer located in the outskirts of Pikeville, Kentucky. It is believed Natasha received little or no parental support (financial or social) from either her biological father or Madonna's ex-husband, whose name had been entered on her birth certificate. By junior high school, Cornett was alienated from most of her fellow pupils because of her unconventional behavior. She suffered from anorexia and was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which went largely untreated due to lack of health insurance.

By the time of her marriage, Cornett had firmly embraced the Goth subculture, wearing black clothing and listening to dark "doom-ridden music", as well as exhibiting interest in the occult and witchcraft. for the purposes of drinking and smoking marijuana. The party got out of hand, and the next day, fearing possible criminal charges for damages done to the room, the group thought it best to leave town.

Along the way, they met the Lillelid family at an interstate highway rest area in Greeneville, Tennessee: Norwegian-born Vidar Lillelid, 34; his Honduran American wife Delfina, 28; their daughter Tabitha, 6; and son Peter, 2. The Lillelids were Jehovah's Witnesses, and they were dedicated to proselytizing their faith to others, including the young people they encountered at the rest area. Cornett and her friends wanted to steal the family's van, having already discussed possibly car-jacking a bigger and more dependable vehicle to replace their cramped and likely unreliable Citation.

The trial Cornett and the others were transported to Greeneville, Tennessee, where they were booked into the local county jail awaiting trial on charges of first degree murder, attempted murder, and kidnapping. Although Cornett took the plea bargain, court testimony established that she did not do the actual shooting of the four victims. In accordance with the agreement she had entered into, Cornett received three sentences of life without the possibility of parole and two additional sentences of 25 years—one each for attempted murder and kidnapping. Although the Department of Corrections believed that Cornett was involved, investigators found insufficient evidence to charge her with helping Pike, who was subsequently found guilty of attempted murder.